March 2014 – Page 2 – Harold Jarche

A roadmap for transition

2014-03-12 by Harold Jarche

There is general consensus in this part of the world that the modern enterprise is a broken structure. Dissatisfaction with employment runs high, even at a time when it is difficult for many to find a full-time job. Just one, of many, examples is a 2013 Gallup Report that shows that 70 percent of workers are disengaged from their work.

The network era scares or confuses many people in positions of influence in large organizations. Having conversations about transparent processes and networked people actually working together to produce business value is like speaking a foreign language in most cases. Grant McCracken says that from the perspective of most corporations, the future looks like the enemy.

A job is just a role that cannot change

2014-03-11 by Harold Jarche

Social networks disrupt hierarchical structures. Web-based social networks accelerate the spread of new ideas and lay bare organizational flaws. Anyone in a position of power and authority is losing some of that due to the growing power of social networks – doctors, teachers, managers, politicians. Social networks speed access to knowledge and accelerate learning. They allow people to quickly make and change connections. Seb Paquet calls this “ridiculously easy group-forming”.

Site Redesign

2014-03-10 by Harold Jarche

If this site is popular, it is because of the content, not the design. I have not put much effort into the design and visual art is definitely not one of my skills. For the most part I have just used templates or very simple layouts. Here are some of the iterations through time.

A simple approach to KM

2019-04-242014-03-10 by Harold Jarche

Knowledge management (KM) does not have to be a major enterprise effort. But the lack of a KM strategy can be a drag on innovation or hamper decision-making in a knowledge intensive organization. While not perfect, a simple approach to KM may be better than none at all, and preferable to a flawed and expensive enterprise-wide approach. At least this model can be implemented with relative ease and no costly software platforms.

A simple approach to KM in the organization is to look at it as three connected but independent levels. The simplest is organizational KM, which ensures that important decisions are recorded, codified, and easily available for retrieval. This is mostly explicit knowledge that ensures the organizational memory remains clear on what key decisions were taken and why others were not. Over time, this becomes more valuable. Focusing only on decision memories ensures that enterprise KM does not require significant resources but does yield useful results.

The world of AD 2014 will have few routine jobs

2014-03-07 by Harold Jarche

@KateCrawford – “Consent is meaningless without comprehension, and comprehension is impossible without visibility.”

“I’ve learned that as soon as you introduce controls on human behaviour, you lose the game.” -John Seddon – via @hemppah

What is your PKM routine?

2023-10-132014-03-05 by Harold Jarche

The most important aspect of PKM is that it is personal. In order to stick with a routine over time, people have to find what works for them. Blogging has been a core part of my sense-making routine over the past decade. When I conduct workshops, my primary aim is help others discover what works for them. I do not have a secret formula, only some general guidelines developed through experience, plus a lot of ideas and suggested areas to explore.

My colleague Jane Hart shared her daily PKM routine recently and it’s different from mine, which of course it should be.

Retrieving cooperation

2014-12-082014-03-04 by Harold Jarche

According to Dion Hinchcliffe, we need to rethink work and reinvent collaboration.

At a high level, there appear to be three major root causes for why collaboration — the very core of how people come together and function as a business — is in the midst of reinvention:

1. Hierarchical management styles break down in the face of the inherent complexity and scale of the modern business environment.
2. New digital tools have put us in constant and direct contact with nearly every person in the developed world at virtually no cost or effort …
3. There has been a sustained shift in the power of creation, as the edges of our organizations and marketplaces now have readily in hand as much — and often more — productive power and reach than our institutions …

At the highest level, we are changing the way we organize as a society. This has only happened twice before. The emerging form (networks) is not a mere modifier of previous forms (Tribes, Institutions & Markets), but a form in itself that may be able to address complex societal issues that the previous forms cannot. This is why changing how we work seems critical to so many people today.

Industrial disease

2022-02-222014-03-02 by Harold Jarche

some blame the management, some the employees;
and everybody knows it’s the Industrial Disease —Dire Straits

Complexity is the new normal

We are so interconnected today that many cannot imagine otherwise. Almost every person is connected to worldwide communication networks. News travels at the speed of a Tweet. Meanwhile, inside the enterprise, reaction times and feedback loops have to get faster to deal with markets that can create multi-billion dollar valuations seemingly overnight. But are they getting faster?